The 136th session of the China Import and Export Fair, also known as the Canton Fair, kicked off on Tuesday in south China's Guangzhou City, which has attracted a record high number of exhibitors exceeding 30,000.
Covering a total exhibition area of 1.55 million square meters, the fair will be held in three phases between Oct. 15 and Nov. 4, with the first phase lasting five days.
Some 390,000 digital and smart products as well as more than 1.04 million green and low-carbon products will be displayed at the event, up 300 percent and 130 percent, respectively, from the previous edition.
"We hope to explore and develop larger and broader overseas markets by continuously conducting technological innovations and rolling out new products," said Wang Weizhen, an exhibitor.
About 147,000 overseas buyers have pre-registered for the fair, showing their high enthusiasm for the event and strong interest in latest Chinese technologies and products.
"When I visit the Canton Fair, I always know that I will see the newest products in the world, the newest technologies - like human-computer interaction technologies [which] will be so much important. The artificial intelligence used in the products will be very attractive in the near future," said a Turkish buyer named Seren Atay.
The fair will also include 400 new product launch events, an increase of 30 percent over the previous edition. It has also optimized its cross-border e-commerce exhibition area and the trade services area to facilitate the participation of both exhibitors and buyers. Launched in 1957 and held twice yearly, the Canton Fair is considered a major gauge of China's foreign trade.
136th Canton Fair opens in Guangzhou with record number of exhibitors
Two and a half decades of sustained wildlife conservation efforts have seen the population recovery of multiple rare wild animal species in a nature reserve of northwest China's Shaanxi Province.
Images of foraging or frolicking wild animals such as snub-nosed monkeys, takins and musk deer, all under first-class protection in China, have recently been captured by infrared cameras set up in the vast reserve in Zhouzhi County of the provincial capital Xi'an.
What made one of the sightings pleasantly rare was that all three of the most protected spices were spotted by the same camera for the first time, indicating the notable growth in the populations of these wild animals since the cameras were first set up at the reserve in 2013.
"We spotted five or six takins, a lot of snub-nosed monkeys that appear intermittently in four to five groups with each group having about 10, two musk deers, and many wild boars," said He Yalou, head of a management station of the reserve, who said that only one of these first-class protected wild animals or a small number of second-class protected animals could be spotted by one camera in previous years.
According to another staff member, since a project was launched 25 years ago to protect the ecological system of forests, the reserve has seen a steady increase in the populations of all kinds of wild animals including four first-class protected species and nearly 20 second-class protected ones.
"As the protected habitats of these animals steadily recover, there has been an increasingly wider distribution of these animals. Since wild animals may appear in every corner of the forests, we need to step up management and protection work to ensure the safety of wild animal resources in the reserve and the harmonious co-existence of humans and animals," said Ding Qiaozhou, head of the resource monitoring and fire prevention division of the reserve.
On Oct. 10, forest police and crews from Zhouzhi County's forestry authority and the provincial rare wild animal research center jointly rescued a Chinese serow, a second-class protected wild animal which had wandered into a local village and became agitated.
The authorities said the animal is receiving proper care and will be released to the wild soon.
Sustained conservation efforts lead to recovery of wildlife populations in Shaanxi
